Collection: Pales

THE CURSE OF THE BLOODLESS BREATH

Satan was furious.

The birth of the Katanga had not brought him joy, but disgust. He did not seek beasts. He did not want fangs and claws and fur soaked in moonlight. He could already twist animals into monsters—he had been doing so since before time was named. He did not desire more wild creatures.
He craved Sapiens.

He wanted perfection.
He wanted beauty.
He wanted his own army of divine vessels—pure in form, capable of speech, vision, music, war, and worship.
He wanted to look into the eyes of a creature made in the image of Goddark… and see his own reflection staring back.

He wanted to steal what the Architects had created with such divine arrogance.
He wanted to turn the pinnacle of creation into the throne of corruption.

And the Katanga were not that.

They were too raw. Too untamed. Too… bestial.

The wrath of Satan echoed across the shadow realm, shaking the foundations of void-temples where no light had ever entered. His voice thundered through the flesh of the Serpens, boiling their blood and shattering their resolve.

“I did not ask for beasts.
I asked for vessels.
I asked for kings of flesh!”

Terrified, the Serpens fell to their knees, writhing like shadows under his gaze.
“Forgive us, Lord of the Avernus,” they hissed in unison. “We shall find the way. We shall awaken the seed.”

Satan watched in silence. His presence alone distorted the fabric of reality around him.
Then, slowly, he receded into the black ether.

The Serpens rose, broken but bound by purpose. And under the weight of their master’s fury, they began again.

This time, they would not rely on venom or mutation.
This time, they would call upon the Sumaya themselves.

Through infernal rites whispered in blood and carved into bone, the Serpens opened the ancient seals. They invoked the wandering spirits of the Sumaya, who howled like winds beyond time. These spirits—desperate, formless, starved of sensation—descended eagerly, drawn to the amber-eyed Hu-Men like moths to a flame.

The plan was simple: possess them.
Enter their bodies through the pineal gland.
Anchor their consciousness into flesh.
Taste the physical world—finally, fully.
See. Smell. Taste. Feel. Touch. Rule.

But it was too soon.

The Amber Hu-Men were not ready. Their pineal glands had not yet fully fractured. Their souls still resisted.
And the Sumaya, ancient and ravenous, forced their way in anyway.

The result was catastrophic.

The possession failed—but not completely.

Instead of fusing soul and spirit, the Sumaya became parasites—unable to take full control, but too deeply embedded to be removed. The Hu-Men screamed in agony as their souls were fed upon, their divine essence drained slowly by the invading spirits.

They did not die.
They were hollowed.

Their connection to Goddark withered. The light of the Architect burned their flesh—they began to fear the sun. Their eyes grew dark, their skin cold, their hearts slowed. They no longer hungered for food, but for life itself. Blood became their sacrament, their addiction, their survival.

Their pineal glands, once radiant bridges of divine breath, became chambers of hunger—gateways half-opened, ever bleeding light into shadow.

They had become eternal...
but incomplete.
Alive...
but unwhole.
Powerful...
but damned.

The first of them wandered the forests in silence, cloaked in shadow. They spoke little. Their beauty remained, but twisted—too perfect, too still. They did not age. They did not sleep. And when they fed, it was not simply to live…
It was to replace what they had lost.

They were called many things.
The Whispering Dead.
The Pale Monarchs.
The Hollow Ones.

But among the Serpens, they were known as the Sumaya-Failed.
And among mortals—those scattered across the planets of Tzion—they came to be known by a single, chilling name:

The Pales.

Not a new species.
Not a creation.
A failed possession.
A breach that could not be closed.

These beings resembled what Satan longed for—
but not enough.

Some bore human ears.
Others, pointed and distorted ones.

Their forms were inconsistent, unstable—too much a reminder of animal roots.
They were cursed to the shadows, weak to the sun, incapable of bearing the light of the divine.
Creatures of elegance… but only under the veil of night.

It was not enough.

Satan was not satisfied.

He wanted kings. Generals. Divine emperors clad in flesh and guided by Sumaya fire.
Not whispering ghosts.
Not creatures forced to flee from dawn.

And so, his obsession deepened. His wrath simmered behind the silence.
He would not rest.
He would not fail again.